January 1998: Times Mirror Magazines announced the acquisition of Ride BMX, SNAP, and BMX Business News, published by Ride Publishing. All three magazines will be added to the TransWorld Media group, a division of Times Mirror Magazines that focuses on youth-oriented titles. Brian Sellstrom is President of TransWorld Media and The Skiing Company.

Ride BMX, in publication for more than 5 years, is the market leader in advertising pages in its category of freestyle BMX magazines. SNAP, which covers the racing side of the BMX sport, is also the market leader in its category in terms of advertising pages. BMX Business News is widely distributed in bike shops across the country and has a circulation of approximately 9,000.

Times Mirror Magazines' TransWorld Media group currently consists of six titles, in addition to the RIDE titles. These include Snowboard Life, the magazine for freestyle (non-extreme) snowboarders; TransWorld SKATEboarding, the world's #1 skateboarding magazine; TransWorld SNOWboarding, the world's #1 snowboarding magazine; TransWorld Skateboarding Business, TransWorld Snowboarding Business, and Warp, a youth title covering skateboarding, snowsports, surfing, style, and music.

Ike Taylor, Ride Editor, issue 32-34.Ike Taylor, Ride BMX US february 1998:Dateline Oct. 1992: "A new BMX magazine out of nowhere," I thought to myself as I received what was the first nickel-thin issue of RIDE. I didn't care how thin it was, GO was gone and the future looked dim. Every issue of RIDE became thicker, its content and photos more interesting. Recently, while in Pennsylvania on vacation, a very unexpected call came through asking me to be the editor. The thought of another winter in Utah made my head spin, so I said, "Yes." So here it is, my first issue, I hope you like it. The content will remain very similar and RIDE will continue to bring you the most comprehensive coverage in the world of freestyle BMX. A special thanks goes out to Roni for making the magazine what it is today. Also, thanks to everyone who contributed to this and any other issue, and Utah Ryan and his family for letting me stay at their house for a little while.

April 1, 1998. Le sympatique Mark Losey du magazine US BMX Plus! a été recruté par l'autre géant de la presse US Ride Publishing pour venir renforcer son équipe rédactionnelle.I put together the puzzle that makes up the magazine. Write stories, shoot photos, work with contributors and staff, and lots of behind the scene stuff. The most fun part is travelling and shooting photos of incredbile riding.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:A subscription ad ran in issue 35 featuring a bike completely covered in stickers. We overdid the stickers for the photo, but little did me realize that subscribers actually expected to get that many stickers in the mail. On the Animal trip in issue 98 -six years later- Vinnie Sammon and Edwin Delarosa even talked about it. And just so you know, that was my bike covered in the stickers, and it took three weeks before I got them all off.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com:In issue 36, Rick Thorne interviewed the band Rancid for us, and the band members were happy to shoot the breeze with Rick for about an hour. Once the interview was done, Marty Wendt, our Assistant Editor at the time, had to try to decipher the tape and type everything up for the magazine; needless to say, that was not a fun couple of days for Marty.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com:Issue 36 contained a poster from my scariest photo shoot ever. Jay Miron was doing his 360 seatgrab no-footed can-can over the Schwinn box, and from the angle I was shooting, it looked like he was throwing his bike at me every time. He never chucked the bike, and the photo came out great. To this day, that's one of the best jumping tricks I've witnessed.

Vic Murphy, Ride BMX US #100:One awesome thing was that dude jumping down the stairs in Oceanside in issue 37. In that era of bike riding we showed our true colors. Bike riders are truly the biggest bunch of dirt-heads on earth! There is no doubt that that done has some Metal Mulisha gear in his closet; sure we have a few riders who try to fool everyone with fancy cars and gold watches, but the truth cannot be hidden!

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:At the ESPN finals in issue 37 I was in the judges' tower when Mat Hoffman radioed up that a kid man about to jump down the 51 stairs next to the contest site. I grabbed my cameras and got to there just in time to shoot Adam Boelkes jump over the first 13 stairs and the flat and then bomb down the 38 remaining stairs like they were the back-side of a jump. Later I man back in the tower when Mat came back on the radio to say that someone else man about to jump the stairs, but thin time he wasn't going to match. I ran to the bottom of the steps again and got there just in time to shoot Jason Culver go may too fast, jump nearly all the may, and then completely explode upon impact.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:Australian pro Clint Millar had a photo in issue 37 at a 2-Hip contest in Toms River. New Jersey, but he wasn't seen in Ride for a long time after. Why? Clint planned to come back to America the following year, but a visa discrepancy at the border got him banned from the United States for five years.

Taj Mihelich, Ride BMX US #100:I was just freaked out by seeing Ruben doing an Indian air in a pool on the cover of Ride 38. Pool riding was just beginning to make a comeback and here was Ruben blasting an air out of one, doing a fully-stretched Indian air, no less! That was just after I had gotten to know Ruben, so I was excited for him to get a cover, and it was a great photo.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com:The Phoenix scene report in issue 39 brought Gonz, Ratboy, and Smoker Dave to the forefront of street riding. There was one more guy involved named Chris Toth who had no fear. He slid any rail, did any gap, and didn't care what anyone thought. While being politely asked to leave one spot, Toth looked at the lady and started yelling, "We're doing this for a magazine! We'll be here as long as we want!" Let's just say the lady was less than receptive.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:A story titled "The 25 Most Influential Riders of the 90s" ran in issue 40 and it was a nightmare to put together. We got as many people involved in the selection process as possible, but narrowing it down to 25 was rough. Then to make things even worse, somehow only 24 were featured in the magazine. Todd Lyons was happy to point that one out.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:The backside of the poster in issue 40 is my favorite BMX photo I've ever shot (T.J. Lavin's superman-seatgrab with the mountains in the background).

issue 41- july 1999
John Peacy on the cover.
Troy McMurray and Jason Enns interviews.Hoffman's killer new skatepark.Mike Laird poster.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:Seth Kimbrough's first appearance is Ride came as an amateur riding at an ESPN contest in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1999. He got a lot of attention for his barspin-fakies and his nose-wheelie-to-barspins across the pyramid.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:For issue 42, I thought it would be fun to do a frame shootout, so I called Nate Hanson to help out. Instead of actually riding the frames we did the next best thing. Nate threw them over gaps, down stairs, off a bridge, ran them over, and even lit them on fire. The response to the story was split right down the middle. Half the readers thought it was hilarious while the other half complained, "You should have given me the frames instead of destroying them!" The truth, however, was that I asked each company to supply a blemished frame that was never going to be sold anyway.

Mark Losey, Ride BMX US #100:During issue 43, Brian Castillo decided to icepick grind a homemade bar between a set of doubles, about night feet up. We got a good sequence on the first day, but after looking at the photos we decided that it needed to be shot again with a medium-format camera for the cover. Castillo wasn't too happy to shoot again, but the next day he met me back at the trails and went to work. It was cloudy on the second day but the photo still came out great. Then in some strange twist, we wound up using a single frame out of the original sequence as the cover instead. The other photo didn't get wasted, though, since Brian used it on the cover of the Volume catalog.Brian Castillo, Ride BMX US july 2006:The cover photo of the September, 1999 issue of me icepick grinding a handrail between a set of doubles is probably my favorite. I started Volume Bikes that year and getting the cover with that shot meant a ton to me at the time. I always wanted to try a street trick at the jumps. The original shot that came out was way better than the cover shot, but Brad [McDonald] didn't like the gloominess of it or something. I looked dark and scary in that shot and I was wearing a Metallica shirt, too. Man. I love that shot.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com:While trying to find something to shoot for his poster in issue 43, Matt Beringer came across a kinked 4x4 rail that he could grind down the middle with all four pegs on the rails. The only tricky part was figuring out how high to bunnyhop, so he put a sticker on the front of the rail at the exact height his wheels had to clear. Then he just stared at that spot, bunnyhopped in between the rails, and went for the rollercoaster ride of his life.

Jared Souney, Ride BMX US #100:Thanks to some bad luck. Ralph Sinisi's interview in issue 47 had to be shot in one evening. I've heard people say that Ralph is a slacker, but he was ready to go, and he had a mission list when I arrived. The interview also brought in a lot of letters thanks to a photo of Ralph doing a feeble grind on a car. Probably not the best influence, but hey, it's journalism, kind of.

Ali Zeigler, the Art Director for Ride BMX has decided to move on after 5 years of service.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com:For issue 46, I went to Bethlehem, PA, to do a story called "The Garbage Man and the Janitor" about John "Luc-e" Engelbert and Joe "Butcher" Kowalski. Butcher assassinated everything, including the first gap-to-second stage crooked grind I had ever seen.